Ethnic culture, distress and clinical measurement: A CORE outcome comparison between the British Chinese and white Europeans

The recent call for evidence-based clinical practice in an increasingly multi-ethnic society has pointed towards the serious lack of psychotherapy outcome data on ethnic minorities in Britain. The aim was to investigate the generalisability of the CORE measure to the Chinese community by (1) comparing outcome scores from the non-clinical Chinese population with existing normative data; and (2) comparing outcome scores from a translated version with the original. One hundred and thirty-three non-clinical Chinese participants residing in Britain responded to either the original measure (CORE; n=104) or a Chinese translated version (C-CORE; n=29). The Chinese sample, whose CORE scores also demonstrated test-retest and internal reliability, did not differ significantly from the white Europeans. However, C-CORE respondents produced significantly higher overall scores and in most domains than the CORE group. This paper highlights potential for the valid testing of ethnic communities, but calls for design modifications and the need for recognising cultural differences.